Slitherine

Please vote on changing Italian surrender conditions

This topic looks lonely, so I will repost here my comment from our current game.

In fact I think quite an opposite thing - its wrong that in most games where axis player don't do major mistakes Italy lasts until 1944 or even 45 and draft major army (which sometimes used on other fronts even). Also Italy usually is kept afloat with cheesy moves like covering beaches with garrisons (I have no idea, why you used mechs and good german units on Sicily for this purpose) and sub mass-production etc.
In fact after I trapped most of good italian troops on Sicily (captured Reggio and blocked ports) effective italian army was not this great, so their surrender was matter of time only.

I would like some rules which make Italian surrender more likely in 1943 with normal play on both sides.

I think main idea of Italian surrender feature is that devs wanted game to be a simulation of reality, where Italy surrendered in summer 1943 literally untouched. In current version it works...BAD. Its very common when Italy holds to 1944-45, or even surrender after Germany. (Actually all my resent games are like this). Nowadays only unexperienced player will allow early italian surrender - it is quite easy to stuff Sicily with garrisons and create coastal defence of Italy, based on units entrenched across the shore and subs in critical places. So time after time we (I guess not only me and people who play vs me ) we see Italy conquered late 44 - 45 from the north - either through Yugoslavia or southern France.

It also common to defence with Italy in such a way, that you surrender only when you run out of troops and fall of Rome is question of few turns.
(If so - why bother with special surrender conditions?)

Defence of Italy is literaly exploit of game mechanics, as you can have much weaker army, then allies have, and still deny their landing with great success. Its totally unrealistic, but works.

Personally I (just an opinion) don't think that "what if all italian costline would be stuffed with poor armed conscripts from various axis countries" is one of "what if"s we really want to see in game.

Maybe italian surrender should be completely redisigned? For example maximum number of troops on Sicily can be hard coded (say 4 italian and 2 german units). So you will need to mount real DEFENCE with strong units, like in reality, not to just stuff the place with garrisons.


I also think that hard-limit for number of garrison units will enhance game greatly, as this units are usually mass-produced ONLY for exploitable use.

Plaid,

I am on the opposite. I hate hardcodes like 'you can have only 4 units somwhere' or 'your units cannot enter specified area'. In games I created I managed to almost completely get rid of such rules. Players feel the freedom and I think they like it. Of course sometimes simplification or such hardcode is there as creating rule would be extremally difficult (very rare cases).

What I like is penalty for making 'unrealistic' moves. As in real life. You are able to do a lot but can you afford it? Drastically, you can smash all your neighbours' cars with a hammer but the price for doing so can be very high. But you CAN.

So every 'exploit' in the game (exploit is something we think would be almost not feasible/possible in reality) should be addressed by penalty that would happen if such things were made.

For example:
I do not agree with the rule 'you are not allowed to have Western Allies units in USSR' - I think you should pay dearly for that (Say 1 extra PP/ per turn for every step + replacement (PP/MP) could be e.g. 200% and not 60% as originally is.

GARs defend along the coast? Why id didn't happen in history? Maybe because such units were highly ineffective against skilled units of the landing side. So maybe GARs' defences agains amphibious landing should be minimized by 50% or even more. This would make massing such units ineconomical.

for Italian surrender. Wasn't it because Italy suffered huge looses not because Sicily was lost? If so maybe after Italy looses say 100 steps Italy should surrender after Allies capture first their city (excluding Tunis)?

etc.

The reason Italy surrendered was because from Sicily the Allies could send strategic bombers to Rome and other Italian cities. Italy was actually negotiating with the Allies before Sicily had completely fallen.